A Short Critique Of Modern Warfare II's 'Blackcell' Bundle; We've Seen This Behavior Before

Ever since Advance Warfare, Call of Duty has been at the mercy of paid cosmetics and skins. At the time of release, it was obvious that Activision were trying something new. Deep down, I think we all knew it would eventually come to what we have today. A hogwash of uninspired eye candy that is shoved down our throats any and everywhere in the game. From the moment you boot up Modern Warfare 2, you have to go through at least two different png screens prompting you to spend money until you finally reach the MAIN MENU.

BlackCell Promotional Material

Now their new weapon is special bundles of special bundles. Pay them twice and you get even more eye candy than is offered if you were to just progress through the levels naturally (if there were any good free skins at all). As the name eye candy implies, these cosmetics are nowhere near as intrusive on the literal numbers in the game. Just pay them more money for fancy looking skins, right? That doesn't sound so bad. It's not the nature of these skins themselves, it's how they deliver them.

The delivery of these cosmetics are intrusive in their own way. As I've stated before, the promotion of this season pass intrudes itself into the main menu. Setting up roadblocks that keep you away from just playing the game. Worse than this, the way they word this new system should trouble you. "The premiere battle pass upgrade." First we paid extra for a battle pass, now we pay another premium price. When does it end?

Season 3 Battle Pass Levels

When can we pay a final price to earn EVERYTHING that a new season comes with? Activision doesn't seem discouraged to do otherwise and that should worry you. It's going to be the pay-to-win scandal all over again. Paying premium prices for premium content (maps, guns, DLC). Sound familiar?

I'm not telling you how you should spend your money. If you want to spend it on premium cosmetics then go right ahead. All I'm saying is to watch out for those "premium" prices. You may end up paying for something more than cosmetics.

Sources:

• Staff, C. of D. (2023, April 11). Introducing BlackCell, an unparalleled reinforcement in call of duty: Modern warfare II and call of duty: Warzone 2.0. Call of Duty®. Retrieved April 13, 2023, from https://www.callofduty.com/blog/2023/04/call-of-duty-modern-warfare-II-and-warzone-2-0-bp-deep-dive-blackcell